Mittmania

A bouillabaisse of linkage: media, politics, society, life, culture with just a pinch of paprika

By Noah Mittman

Noah Mittman
Cell Biology
Why has nuclear power been a flop?
rootsofprogress.org
The official model guiding US government policy, both at the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), is the Linear No Threshold model (LNT). …
2 days ago
Noah Mittman
Yahoo
'How Do You Get Spaghetti Stains Out of Underwear?': An Ode to Yahoo Answers
Esquire - By Justin McElroy
Justin McElroy, co-host of My Brother, My Brother and Me, looks back on the website that shaped his career—and captured the absurdity of being human ... or too high. When my brothers Travis and Griffin...
Apr 8
Noah Mittman
Facebook
Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens
The Guardian - Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco
Facebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders and politicians to use its platform to deceive the public or harass opponents despite being alerted to evidence of the wrongdoing. The Guardian has seen extensive...
6 days ago
Noah Mittman
Music
The Long Tail of Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14th’
The New York Times - Eric Ducker
On April 14, 2020, the producer and pianist Kelly Moran woke up in Long Island. She had temporarily moved back there the previous fall to work on her next album, but when the pandemic arrived, she got...
5 days ago
Noah Mittman
Relationships
Why is Maintaining Adult Friendships So Difficult?
lithub.com - By Kristin van Ogtrop
“You know what really drives me crazy?” Silvia was saying. “‘One hundred percent.’ No one says ‘Yes’ anymore, or ‘I agree with you,’ or ‘I …
Apr 9
Noah Mittman
entertainment news
The Fierce Vulnerability of DMX
The Atlantic - Spencer Kornhaber
At its best, hip-hop reveals the complexity of the human voice, and few artists show that better than DMX did. The sound that came out of Earl Simmons’s mouth was often called a growl or rasp, but those...
Apr 9
Noah Mittman
Bustle Digital Group is going to revive Gawker!
Media Industry
Why We’re Freaking Out About Substack
The New York Times - Ben Smith
Apr 11
Noah Mittman
Short Stories
Amy Solomon and Aparna Nancherla on the Intersection of Comedy and Anxiety
lithub.com - By The Maris Review
This week on The Maris Review, Amy Solomon and Aparna Nancherla join Maris Kreizman to discuss the anthology Notes from the Bathroom Line: Humor, Art, …
Apr 8
Noah Mittman
U.S. Politics
Maybe just shut up about national politics if you want to reduce polarization?
Nieman Lab - Joshua Benton
Shifting the focus of a newspaper’s opinion section from national (Trump! Pelosi! distant, scary!) to local (schools! development! nearby, impactful!) can reduce political polarization, a new study finds....
Apr 1
Noah Mittman
mRNA is huge and will change medicine forever
Flu
How mRNA Technology Could Change the World
The Atlantic - Derek Thompson
Mar 29
Noah Mittman
"So, if we’re going to set one ground rule for the 'back to normal' transition period it should be this: do not, under any circumstances, ask anyone how they’ve been. We’re entering a post-small talk …
Language
Hello, I’m Eleanor – please can you remind me how to make small talk?
The Guardian - Eleanor Margolis
Apr 1
Noah Mittman
Peaches
We’ve Got A File On You: Peaches
stereogum.com - Annie Zaleski
We’ve Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting …
Mar 30
Noah Mittman
Writing
Growing Up as a ‘Gifted Child’ and the Rude Awakening of Adulthood
VICE - Angel Martinez
I was a child genius. Now I’m an average adult. When I was 5 years old, my parents took me to meet with a mysterious woman, whose office was tucked in a building a few minutes away from our house. I had...
Mar 29
Noah Mittman
Media Industry
The mess at Medium
The Verge - Casey Newton
Last week, a partnerships manager at Medium working with the White House found that there was a strange problem with the platform: President Joe Biden was being served porn. The manager was in a video...
Mar 25
Noah Mittman
Viral Marketing
SSO | Washington Post eyes ‘Zeus Pass’; shared-user, content, ad network for partner sites | Information Trust Exchange Association...
itega.org
PRIVACY BEAT EXTRA Washington Post, with more than 500 engineers, likely to field ‘Zeus Pass’ and ad marketplace similar to Google and Facebook, top …
Mar 16
Noah Mittman
Technology
Does Amazon make more from ads than AWS?
ben-evans.com - Benedict Evans
There’s an old and common narrative around Amazon that it doesn’t make money, it sells below cost, it’s subsidised by investors and in particular …
Mar 14
Noah Mittman
Pandemics
The uneasy intimacy of work in a pandemic year
Vox - Constance Grady
As we confront the one-year anniversary of the US locking down in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we are also confronting the one-year anniversary of America choosing work above all else. Many of us...
Mar 19
Noah Mittman
Autos
What Happened to Pickup Trucks?
Bloomberg CityLab
As U.S. drivers buy more full-size and heavy-duty pickups, these vehicles have transformed from no-frills workhorses into angry giants. And …
Mar 11
Noah Mittman
The Typewriter (supercut)
vimeo.com
An homage to typewriters in film and television, set to Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter".
Jan 17
Noah Mittman
Transit
The Zombie Billboards of Locked-Down New York
Curbed - Tim Donnelly
Photo: DeSean McClinton-Holland Standing on a subway platform now, it looks as if Riverdance’s big 25th anniversary show just opened, David Byrne’s American Utopia is still enjoying a limited Broadway...
Mar 18
Noah Mittman
"For the past ten months, I’ve only hugged my wife, and I love her so much, but that still seems like some real Mike Pence shit to me."
Long Live Hugs
thecut.com - Josh Gondelman
Mar 17
Noah Mittman
Here's why Substack's scam worked so well
Substack - Annalee Newitz
They paid a secret group of writers to make newsletter authorship seem lucrative I think of myself as having decent critical faculties, but somehow I …
Mar 18
Noah Mittman
Why YKK zippers are the brown M&Ms of product design: look at the little details to judge overall gear quality
theprepared.com - Leave a comment on Why YKK zippers are the brown M&Ms of product design: look at the little details to judge overall gear quality
A ‘pro tip’ for evaluating the quality of a piece of gear is to look at the small details, such as zippers and stitching. Cheap-minded manufacturers …
Mar 4
Noah Mittman
Split Screen: How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds? – The Markup
themarkup.org
Split Screen How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds? Snapshots from the Facebook feeds of our Citizen Browser panelists illuminate how Facebook’s …
Mar 11
Noah Mittman
Why won't these audiences pay for news?
Substack - Anita Li
How offering concrete benefits may be the key to converting the most resistant audiences, including lower-income communities. Hey y’all! Anita here. …
Feb 21
Noah Mittman
Media Industry
What the pandemic means for paywalls
cjr.org - By Mary Retta
A year ago this month, major publications across the United States partially or completely lowered their paywalls. The idea was that information …
Mar 9
Noah Mittman
Pandemics
Coming of Age: Teens on Coping With a Pandemic Year
The New York Times
What has it been like to be a teenager during the first year of a historic pandemic? The New York Times, through its Learning Network, asked the question, and more than 5,500 responses poured in. In words...
Mar 8
Noah Mittman
They Had a Fun Pandemic. You Can Read About It in Print.
The New York Times - Ben Smith
Correction: March 8, 2021 This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the ownership of Dimes restaurant in Lower Manhattan....
Mar 9
Noah Mittman
Young Americans are more likely to understand how news works on Google and Facebook
Nieman Lab - Hanaa' Tameez
The Center conducted the study of 1,010 American adults between August 4 and 17, 2020. Of the survey respondents, 53.2 percent identified as female and 66.1 percent identified as white and non-Hispanic....
Mar 5